He stopped at the edge of the mattress, a foot away from Chase. His heart was in his fucking throat, clogging it up. Chase’s eyes were big and shiny with tears, cheeks wet.
Oh, God.
“Baby,” Auston begged. He needed to do the right thing. Had to figure out what the hell that was. “You’re in heat.” He couldn’t stop trembling, the distance between them making nausea rise, bile coating his tongue.
“Please,” Chase said, voice rasping, hand twitching out.
“I can’t. Baby, I need to go—I’m gonna bite you if I don’t, okay?” He needed to leave now. It was the right thing to do. And yet there he stood, muscles turned to stone.
Chase opened his mouth and, devastatingly, said, “You don’t want me?”
Auston flinched, words harpooning through his chest. He fell forwards, catching Chase’s now limp hand and pulling him close.
Chase climbed into his lap at once, wrapping around him, and there it was—Auston’s body realigned, the shaking quieting, the pain in his stomach lessening.
“Don’t say that. You know that’s not true,” Auston begged.
Chase snuffled in, mouth on Auston’s neck, and Auston had to close his eyes tightly shut as electricity zipped through him.
He was pretty fucking sure he was in rut. Way off schedule, too—he normally had just one in the summer.
He was going to die if he had to leave Chase.
God, what was he going to do?
“Then don’t leave,” Chase was saying. “Daddy, please don’t leave. I’ll be good, I promise I’ll be good.”
Auston crushed Chase into his body. “You’re good. You’re always good. We’ll mate, Chase. You’re twenty-one.”
“I want you,” Chase said, voice steady, the clearest he’d sounded since Auston woke up. “I want you to bite me.”
God. Auston rubbed his stubble-prickly cheek against Chase’s neck, scenting him, covering them in each other’s stink. It filled his head—he’d never smelt anything soright.
Chase licked up Auston’s shoulder, his throat, and Auston gasped, hips rocking forwards, hard cock trapped alongside Chase’s between their bellies. He was trembling again.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He was going to waityearsto mate Chase, would make sure this was what the Omega wanted.
They were supposed to talk about it. Plan it out. Make it Romantic.Consensual. Do it in their nest, where they were safe.
Their mating was not supposed to be some feral thing in fucking Cancun during the All-Stars break.
Chase squirmed closer, kissing all over Auston’s face, and Auston’s patience shredded. He gripped the back of Chase’s head, holding him still for a proper kiss, licking into his mouth, sucking on his tongue.
Whatever his mind was saying, his body was screaming something else.
Thoughts disintegrated. There was only this—Chase was his, and Auston was Chase’s.
They belonged together.
“Yeah,” Auston mumbled into Chase’s slick lips, that growling beast inside him taking over again. “You wanna be my mate, baby?”
Chase gasped. “Yes, Daddy, please—yes, yes—”
Auston tilted forwards until Chase’s back hit the mattress, the Omega still clinging to him. Auston reached between them, cock pulsing as he aligned their bodies and pushedin.
Chase shouted, head falling back, throat exposed, pink and red with beard burn, blotchy with a flush. Auston had never seen anything more beautiful, had never smelt anything more delicious.
This was his.